JK 

1763 
F7 
1880 


1 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 


LECTURE 

DELIVERED  AT  THE  OLD  SOUTH  CHURCH, 
March  30,  1878. 


BY 

RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON. 


BOSTON: 
HOUGHTON,  OSGOOD  AND  COMPANY. 

(Pe  Htoermfce  Ipreacf,  (JDarabnUff* . 
1880. 


Copyright,  1878, 
BT  RALPH  WALDO 


All  rights  reserved. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED    AND    FEINTED  BY 
H-  0.  HOUOHTON  AND  COMPANT. 


JK 


£7 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 


IT  is  a  rule  that  holds  in  economy  as  well 
as  in  hydraulics,  that  you  must  have  a  source 
higher  than  your  tap.  The  mills,  the  shops, 
the  theatre  and  the  caucus,  the  college  and 
the  church,  have  all  found  out  this  secret. 
The  sailors  sail  by  chronometers  that  do  not 
lose  two  or  three  seconds  in  a  year,  ever  since 
Newton  explained  to  Parliament  that  the 
way  to  improve  navigation  was  to  get  good 
watches,  and  to  offer  public  premiums  for  a 
better  time-keeper  than  any  then  in  use. 
The  manufacturers  rely  on  turbines  of  hy- 
draulic perfection ;  the  carpet-mill,  on  mor- 
iants  and  dyes  which  exhaust  the  skill  of 
the  chemist  ;  the  calico  print,  on  designers 


2  FORTUNE   OF   THE  REPUBLIC. 

of  genius  who  draw  the  wages  of  artists,  not 
of  artisans.  Wedgewood,  the  eminent  pot- 
ter, bravely  took  the  sculptor  Flaxman  to 
counsel,  who  said,  "  Send  to  Italy,  search  the 
museums  for  the  forms  of  old  Etruscan  vases, 
urns,  water-pots,  domestic  and  sacrificial  ves- 
sels of  all  kinds."  They  built  great  works  and 
called  their  manufacturing  village  Etruria. 
Flaxman,  with  his  Greek  taste,  selected  and 
combined  the  loveliest  forms,  which  were 
executed  in  English  clay ;  sent  boxes  of  these 
as  gifts  to  every  court  of  Europe,  and  formed 
the  taste  of  the  world.  It  was  a  renaissance 
of  the  breakfast  table  and  china-closet.  The 
brave  manufacturers  made  their  fortune.  The 
jewellers  imitated  the  revived  models  in  sil- 
ver and  gold. 

The  theatre  avails  itself  of  the  best  talent 
of  poet,  of  painter,  and  of  amateur  of  taste,  to 
make  the  ensemble  of  dramatic  effect.  The 
marine  insurance  office  has  its  mathematical 
counsellor  to  settle  averages ;  the  life-assur- 


FORTUNE  OF   THE  REPUBLIC.  3 

ance,  its  table  of  annuities.  The  wine  mer- 
chant has  his  analyst  and  taster,  the  more  ex- 
quisite the  better.  He  has  also,  I  fear,  his 
debts  to  the  chemist  as  well  as  to  the  vine- 
yard. 

Our  modern  wealth  stands  on  a  few  staples, 
and  the  interest  nations  took  in  our  war  was 
exasperated  by  the  importance  of  the  cotton 
trade.  And  what  is  cotton  ?  One  plant  out 
of  some  two  hundred  thousand  known  to  the 
botanist,  vastly  the  larger  part  of  which  are 
reckoned  weeds.  And  what  is  a  weed  ?  A 
plant  whose  virtues  have  not  yet  been  dis- 
covered, —  every  one  of  the  two  hundred 
thousand  probably  yet  to  be  of  utility  in  the 
arts.  As  Bacchus  of  the  vine,  Ceres  of  the 
wheat,  as  Arkwright  and  Whitney  were  the 
demi-gods  of  cotton,  so  prolific  Time  will  yet 
bring  an  inventor  to  every  plant.  There  is 
not  a  property  in  nature  but  a  mind  is  born 
to  seek  and  find  it.  For  it  is  not  the  plants 
or  the  animals,  innumerable  as  they  are,  nor 


4  FORTUNE   OF   THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  whole  magazine  of  material  nature  that 
can  give  the  sum  of  power,  but  the  infinite 
applicability  of  these  things  in  the  hands  of 
thinking  man,  every  new  application  being 
equivalent  to  a  new  material. 

Our  sleepy  civilization,  ever  since  Roger 
Bacon  and  Monk  Schwartz  invented  gun- 
powder, has  built  its  whole  art  of  war,  all 
fortification  by  land  and  sea,  all  drill  and 
military  education,  on  that  one  compound,  — 
all  is  an  extension  of  a  gun-barrel,  —  and  is 
very  scornful  about  bows  and  arrows,  and 
reckons  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Middle 
Ages  little  better  than  Indians  and  bow-and- 
arrow  times.  As  if  the  earth,  water,  gases, 
lightning  and  caloric  had  not  a  million  ener- 
gies, the  discovery  of  any  one  of  which  could 
change  the  art  of  war  again,  and  put  an  end 
to  wai  by  the  exterminating  forces  man  can 
apply. 

Now,  if  this  is  true  in  all  the  useful  and 
in  the  fine  arts,  that  the  direction  must  be 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.  5 

drawn  from  a  superior  source  or  there  will 
be  no  good  work,  does  it  hold  less  in  our 
social  and  civil  life  ? 

In  our  popular  politics  you  may  note  that 
each  aspirant  who  rises  above  the  crowd, 
however  at  first  making  his  obedient  appren- 
ticeship in  party  tactics,  if  he  have  sagacity, 
soon  learns  that  it  is  by  no  means  by  obey- 
ing the  vulgar  weathercock  of  his  party,  the 
resentments,  the  fears,  and  whims  of  it,  that 
real  power  is  gained,  but  that  he  must  often 
face  and  resist  the  party,  and  abide  by  his 
resistance,  and  put  them  in  fear ;  that  the 
only  title  to  their  permanent  respect,  and  to 
a  larger  following,  is  to  see  for  himself  what 
is  the  real  public  interest,  and  to  stand  for 
that ;  —  that  is  a  principle,  and  all  the  cheer- 
ing and  hissing  of  the  crowd  must  by  and  by 
accommodate  itself  to  it.  Our  times  easily 
afford  you  very  good  examples. 

The  law  of  water  and  all  fluids  is  true  of 
wit.  Prince  Metternich  said,  "  Revolutiona 


6  FORTUNE   OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

begin  in  the  best  heads  and  run  steadily  down 
to  the  populace."  It  is  a  very  old  observa- 
tion; not  truer  because  Metternich  said  it, 
and  not  less  true. 

There  have  been  revolutions  which  were 
not  in  the  interest  of  feudalism  and  barba- 
rism, but  in  that  of  society.  And  these  are 
distinguished  not  by  the  numbers  of  the  com- 
batants nor  the  numbers  of  the  slain,  but  by 
the  motive.  No  interest  now  attaches  to  the 
wars  of  York  and  Lancaster,  to  the  wars  of 
German,  French,  and  Spanish  emperors, 
which  were  only  dynastic  wars,  but  to  those 
in  which  a  principle  was  involved.  These 
are  read  with  passionate  interest  and  never 
lose  their  pathos  by  time.  When  the  cannon 
is  aimed  by  ideas,  when  men  with  religious 
convictions  are  behind  it,  when  men  die  for 
what  they  live  for,  and  the  mainspring  that 
works  daily  urges  them  to  hazard  all,  then 
the  cannon  articulates  its  explosions  with  the 
voice  of  a  man,  then  the  rifle  seconds  the  can- 


FORTUNE  OF   THE  REPUBLIC.  7 

non  and  the  fowling-piece  the  rifle,  and  the 
women  make  the  cartridges,  and  all  shoot  at 
one  mark ;  then  gods  join  in  the  combat ; 
then  poets  are  born,  and  the  better  code  of 
laws  at  last  records  the  victory. 

Now  the  culmination  of  these  triumphs  of 
humanity  —  and  which  did  virtually  include 
the  extinction  of  slavery  —  is  the  planting  of 
America. 

At  every  moment  some  one  country  more 
than  any  other  represents  the  sentiment  and 
the  future  of  mankind.  None  will  doubt 
that  America  occupies  this  place  in  the  opin- 
ion of  nations,  as  is  proved  by  the  fact  of  the 
vast  immigration  into  this  country  from  all 
the  nations  of  Western  and  Central  Europe. 
And  when  the  adventurers  have  planted  them- 
selves and  looked  about,  they  send  back  all 
the  money  they  can  spare  to  bring  their 
friends. 

Meantime  they  find  this  country  just  pass- 
ing through  a  great  crisis  in  its  history,  as 


8  FORTUNE   OF   THE  REPUBLIC. 

necessary  as  lactation  or  dentition  or  puberty 
to  the  human  individual.  We  are  in  these 
days  settling  for  ourselves  and  our  descend- 
ants questions  which,  as  they  shall  be  deter- 
mined in  one  way  or  the  other,  will  make 
the  peace  and  prosperity  or  the  calamity  of 
the  next  ages.  The  questions  of  Education, 
of  Society,  of  Labor,  the  direction  of  talent, 
of  character,  the  nature  and  habits  of  the 
American,  may  well  occupy  us,  and  more  the 
question  of  Religion. 

The  new  conditions  of  mankind  in  America 
are  really  favorable  to  progress,  the  removal 
of  absurd  restrictions  and  antique  inequali- 
ties. The  mind  is  always  better  the  more  it 
is  used,  and  here  it  is  kept  in  practice.  The 
humblest  is  daily  challenged  to  give  his  opin- 
ion on  practical  questions,  and  while  civil  and 
social  freedom  exists,  nonsense  even  has  a 
favorable  effect.  Cant  is  good  to  provoke 
common  sense.  The  Catholic  Church,  the 
trance -mediums,  the  rebel  paradoxes,  exas- 


FORTUNE   OF   THE  REPUBLIC.  9 

perate  the  common  sense.  The  wilder  the 
paradox,  the  more  sure  is  Punch  to  put  it  in 
the  pillory. 

The  lodging  the  power  in  the  people,  as  in 
republican  forms,  has  the  effect  of  holding 
things  closer  to  common  sense;  for  a  court 
or  an  aristocracy,  which  must  always  be  a 
small  minority,  can  more  easily  run  into 
follies  than  a  republic,  which  has  too  many 
observers,  —  each  with  a  vote  in  his  hand,  — 
to  allow  its  head  to  be  turned  by  any  kind  of 
nonsense  :  since  hunger,  thirst,  cold,  the  cries 
of  children,  and  debt,  are  always  holding  the 
masses  hard  to  the  essential  duties. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  American  peo- 
ple attempted  to  carry  out  the  bill  of  politi- 
cal rights  to  an  almost  ideal  perfection.  They 
have  made  great  strides  in  that  direction 
since.  They  are  now  proceeding,  instructed 
by  their  success,  and  by  their  many  failures, 
to  carry  out  not  the  bill  of  rights,  but  the 
bill  of  human  duties. 


10       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

And  look  what  revolution  that  attempt  in- 
volves. Hitherto  government  has  been  that 
of  the  single  person  or  of  the  aristocracy. 
In  this  country  the  attempt  to  resist  these 
elements,  it  is  asserted,  must  throw  us  into 
the  government  not  quite  of  mobs,  but  in 
practice  of  an  inferior  class  of  professional 
politicians,  who  by  means  of  newspapers  and 
caucuses  really  thrust  their  unworthy  minor- 
ity into  the  place  of  the  old  aristocracy  on  the 
one  side,  and  of  the  good,  industrious,  well- 
taught  but  unambitious  population  on  the 
other,  win  the  posts  of  power,  and  give  their 
direction  to  affairs.  Hence  liberal  congresses 
and  legislatures  ordain,  to  the  surprise  of 
the  people,  equivocal,  interested,  and  vicious 
measures.  The  men  themselves  are  suspected 
and  charged  with  lobbying  and  being  lobbied. 
No  measure  is  attempted  for  itself,  but  the 
opinion  of  the  people  is  courted  in  the  first 
place,  and  the  measures  are  perfun.ctorily 
Carried  through  as  secondary.  We  do  not 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       11 

choose  our  own  candidate,  no,  nor  any  other 
man's  first  choice,  —  but  only  the  available 
candidate,  whom,  perhaps,  no  man  loves.  We 
do  not  speak  what  we  think,  but  grope  af- 
ter the  practicable  and  available.  Instead  of 
character,  there  is  a  studious  exclusion  of 
character.  The  people  are  feared  and  flat- 
tered. They  are  not  reprimanded.  The 
country  is  governed  in  bar-rooms,  and  in  the 
mind  of  bar-rooms.  The  low  can  best  win 
the  low,  and  each  aspirant  for  power  vies 
with  his  rival  which  can  stoop  lowest,  and 
depart  widest  from  himself. 

The  partisan  on  moral,  even  on  religious 
questions,  will  choose  a  proven  rogue  who 
can  answer  the  tests,  over  an  honest,  affec- 
tionate, noble  gentleman ;  the  partisan  ceas- 
ing to  be  a  man  that  he  may  be  a  sectarian. 

The  spirit  of  our  political  economy  is  low 
and  degrading.  The  precious  metals  are  not 
so  precious  as  they  are  esteemed.  Man  exists 
for  his  own  sake,  and  not  to  add  a  laborer 


12       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

to  the  state.  The  spirit  of  our  political  ac- 
tion, for  the  most  part,  considers  nothing  less 
than  the  sacredness  of  man.  Party  sacrifices 
man  to  the  measure. 

We  have  seen  the  great  party  of  property 
and  education  in  the  country  drivelling  and 
Huckstering  away,  for  views  of  party  fear  or 
advantage,  every  principle  of  humanity  and 
the  dearest  hopes  of  mankind;  the  trustees 
of  power  only  energetic  when  mischief  could 
be  done,  imbecile  as  corpses  when  evil  was  to 
be  prevented. 

Our  great  men  succumb  so  far  to  the  forms 
of  the  day  as  to  peril  their  integrity  for  the 
sake  of  adding  to  the  weight  of  their  per- 
sonal character  the  authority  of  office,  or  mak- 
ing a  real  government  titular.  Our  politics 
are  full  of  adventurers,  who  having  by  edu- 
cation and  social  innocence  a  good  repute  in 
the  state,  break  away  from  the  law  of  hon- 
esty and  think  they  can  afford  to  join  the 
devil's  party.  'Tis  odious,  these  offenders  in 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       13 

high  life.  You  rally  to  the  support  of  old 
charities  and  the  cause  of  literature,  and 
there,  to  be  sure,  are  these  brazen  faces.  In 
this  innocence  you  are  puzzled  how  to  meet 
them;  must  shake  hands  with  them,  under 
protest.  We  feel  toward  them  as  the  min- 
ister about  the  Cape  Cod  farm,  —  in  the  old 
time  when  the  minister  was  still  invited,  in 
the  spring,  to  make  a  prayer  for  the  bless- 
ing of  a  piece  of  land,  —  the  good  pastor 
being  brought  to  the  spot,  stopped  short : 
"  No,  this  land  does  not  want  a  prayer,  this 
land  wants  manure." 

"  'T  is  virtue  which  they  want,  and  wanting  it, 
Honor  no  garment  to  their  backs  can  fit." 

Parties  keep  the  old  names,  but  exhibit  a 
surprising  fugacity  in  creeping  out  of  one 
snake-skin  into  another  of  equal  ignominy 
and  lubricity,  and  the  grasshopper  on  the 
turret  of  Faneuil  Hall  gives  a  proper  hint  of 
the  men  below. 

Everything  yields.     The  very  glaciers  are 


14       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

viscous  or  regelate  into  conformity,  and  the 
Btiffest  patriots  falter  and  compromise;  so 
that  will  cannot  be  depended  on  to  save  us. 

How  rare  are  acts  of  will !  We  are  all 
living  according  to  custom ;  we  do  as  other 
people  do,  and  shrink  from  an  act  of  our  own. 
Every  such  act  makes  a  man  famous,  and  we 
can  all  count  the  few  cases,  —  half  a  dozen  in 
our  time,  —  when  a  public  man  ventured  to 
act  as  he  thought,  without  waiting  for  orders 
or  for  public  opinion.  John  Quincy  Adams 
was  a  man  of  an  audacious  independence  that 
always  kept  the  public  curiosity  alive  in  re- 
gard to  what  he  might  do.  None  could  pre- 
dict his  word,  and  a  whole  congress  could 
not  gainsay  it  when  it  was  spoken.  General 
Jackson  was  a  man  of  will,  and  his  phrase 
on  one  memorable  occasion,  "  I  will  take  the 
responsibility,"  is  a  proverb  ever  since. 

The  American  marches  with  a  careless 
swagger  to  the  height  of  power,  very  heed- 
less of  his  own  liberty,  or  of  other  peoples', 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  EEPUBLIC.       15 

in  his  reckless  confidence  that  he  can  have 
all  he  wants,  risking  all  the  prized  charters 
of  the  human  race,  bought  with  battles  and 
revolutions  and  religion,  gambling  them  all 
away  for  a  paltry  selfish  gain. 

He  sits  secure  in  the  possession  of  his  vast 
domain,  rich  beyond  all  experience  in  re- 
sources, sees  its  inevitable  force  unlocking  it- 
self in  elemental  order  day  by  day,  year  by 
year ;  looks  from  his  coal-fields,  his  wheat- 
bearing  prairie,  his  gold-mines,  to  his  two 
oceans  on  either  side,  and  feels  .the  security 
that  there  can  be  no  famine  in  a  country 
reaching  through  so  many  latitudes,  no  want 
that  cannot  be  supplied,  no  danger  from  any 
excess  of  importation  of  art  or  learning  into 
a  country  of  such  native  strength,  such  im- 
mense digestive  power. 

In  proportion  to  the  personal  ability  of 
each  man,  he  feels  the  invitation  and  career 
which  the  country  opens  to  him.  He  is  easily 
fed  with  wheat  and  game,  with  Ohio  wine,  but 


16       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

his  brain  is  also  pampered  by  finer  draughts, 
by  political  power  and  by  the  power  in  the 
railroad  board,  in  the  mills,  or  the  banks. 
This  elevates  his  spirits  and  gives,  of  course, 
an  easy  self-reliance  that  makes  him  self- 
willed  and  unscrupulous. 

I  think  this  levity  is  a  reaction  on  the  peo- 
ple from  the  extraordinary  advantages  and 
invitations  of  their  condition.  When  we  are 
most  disturbed  by  their  rash  and  immoral 
voting,  it  is  not  malignity,  but  recklessness. 
They  are  careless  of  politics,  because  they  do 
not  entertain  the  possibility  of  being  seriously 
caught  in  meshes  of  legislation.  They  feel 
strong  and  irresistible.  They  believe  that 
what  they  have  enacted  they  can  repeal  if 
they  do  not  like  it.  But  one  may  run  a  risk 
once  too  often.  They  stay  away  from  the 
polls,  saying  that  one  vote  can  do  no  good ! 
Or  they  take  another  step,  and  say  one 
vote  can  do  no  harm !  and  vote  for  something 
which  they  do  not  approve,  because  their 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       17 

party  or  set  votes  for  it.  Of  course  this  puts 
them  in  the  power  of  any  party  having  a 
steady  interest  to  promote,  which  does  not 
conflict  manifestly  with  the  pecuniary  interest 
of  the  voters.  But  if  they  should  come  to  be 
interested  in  themselves  and  in  their  career, 
they  would  no  more  stay  away  from  the  elec- 
tion than  from  their  own  counting-room  or 
the  house  of  their  friend. 

The  people  are  right-minded  enough  on 
ethical  questions,  but  they  must  pay  their 
debts,  and  must  have  the  means  of  living 
well,  and  not  pinching.  So  it  is  useless  to 
rely  on  them  to  go  to  a  meeting,  or  to  give  a 
vote,  if  any  check  from  this  must-have-the- 
money  side  arises.  If  a  customer  looks  grave 
at  their  newspaper,  or  damns  their  member 
of  Congress,  they  take  another  newspaper, 
and  vote  for  another  man.  They  must  have 
money,  for  a  certain  style  of  living  fast  be- 
comes necessary  ;  they  must  take  wine  at  the 
hotel,  first,  for  the  look  of  it,  and  second,  for 


18       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  purpose  of  sending  the  bottle  to  two  or 
three  gentlemen  at  the  table ;  and  presently, 
because  they  have  got  the  taste,  and  do  not 
feel  that  they  have  dined  without  it. 

The  record  of  the  election  now  and  then 
alarms  people  by  the  all  but  unanimous 
choice  of  a  rogue  and  brawler.  But  how 
was  it  done  ?  What  lawless  mob  burst  into 
the  polls  and  threw  in  these  hundreds  of  bal- 
lots in  defiance  of  the  magistrates?  This 
was  done  by  the  very  men  you  know,  —  the 
mildest,  most  sensible,  best-natured  people. 
The  only  account  of  this  is,  that  they  have 
been  scared  or  warped  into  some  association 
in  their  mind  of  the  candidate  with  the  in- 
terest of  their  trade  or  of  their  property. 

Whilst  each  cabal  urges  its  candidate,  and 
at  last  brings,  with  cheers  and  street-demon- 
strations, men  whose  names  are  a  knell  to  all 
.lope  of  progress,  the  good  and  wise  are  hid- 
den in  their  active  retirements,  and  are  quite 
out  of  question. 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       19 

'  These  we  must  join  to  wake,  for  these  are  of  the  strain 
That  justice  dare  defend,  and  will  the  age  maintain." 

Yet  we  know,  all  over  this  country,  men  of 
integrity,  capable  of  action  and  of  affairs, 
with  the  deepest  sympathy  in  all  that  con- 
2erns  the  public,  mortified  by  the  national 
disgrace,  and  quite  capable  of  any  sacrifice 
except  of  their  honor. 

Faults  in  the  working  appear  in  our  system, 
as  in  all,  but  they  suggest  their  own  rem- 
edies. After  every  practical  mistake,  out  of 
which  any  disaster  grows,  the  people  wake 
and  correct  it  with  energy.  And  any  dis- 
turbances in  politics,  in  civil  or  foreign  wars, 
sober  them,  and  instantly  show  more  virtue 
and  conviction  in  the  popular  vote.  In  each 
new  threat  of  faction  the  ballot  has  been, 
beyond  expectation,  right  and  decisive. 

'Tis  ever  an  inspiration,  God  only  knows 
whence;  a  sudden,  undated  perception  of 
eternal  right  coming  into  and  correcting 


20       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

things  that  were  wrong;  a  perception  that 
passes  through  thousands  as  readily  as 
through  one. 

The  gracious  lesson  taught  by  science  to 
this  country  is,  that  the  history  of  nature 
from  first  to  last  is  incessant  advance  from 
less  to  more,  from  rude  to  finer  organiza- 
tion, the  globe  of  matter  thus  conspiring 
with  the  principle  of  undying  hope  in  man. 
Nature  works  in  immense  time,  and  spends 
individuals  and  races  prodigally  to  prepare 
new  individuals  and  races.  The  lower  kinds 
are  one  after  one  extinguished ;  the  higher 
forms  come  in.  The  history  of  civilization, 
or  the  refining  of  certain  races  to  wonderful 
power  of  performance,  is  analogous  ;  but  the 
best  civilization  yet  is  only  valuable  as  a 
ground  of  hope. 

Ours  is  the  country  of  poor  men.  Here 
is  practical  democracy;  here  is  the  human 
race  poured»out  over  the  continent  to  do  itself 
'ustice  ;  all  mankind  in  its  shirt-sleeves  ;  not 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       21 

grimacing  like  poor  rich  men  in  cities,  pre- 
tending to  be  rich,  but  unmistakably  taking 
off  its  coat  to  hard  work,  when  labor  is  sure 
to  pay.  This  through  all  the  country.  For 
really,  though  you  see  wealth  in  the  capitals, 
it  is  only  a  sprinkling  of  rich  men  in  the 
cities  and  at  sparse  points ;  the  bulk  of  the 
population  is  poor.  In  Maine,  nearly  every 
man  is  a  lumberer.  In  Massachusetts,  every 
twelfth  man  is  a  shoemaker,  and  the  rest, 
millers,  farmers,  sailors,  fishermen. 

Well,  the  result  is,  instead  of  the  doleful 
experience  of  the  European  economist,  who 
tells  us,  "  In  almost  all  countries  the  condi- 
tion of  the  great  body  of  the  people  is  poor 
and  miserable,"  here  that  same  great  body 
has  arrived  at  a  sloven  plenty,  —  ham  and 
corn-cakes,  tight  roof,  and  coals  enough  have 
been  attained ;  an  unbuttoned  comfort,  not 
clean,  not  thoughtful,  far  from  polished,  with- 
out dignity  in  his  repose  ;  the  man  awkward 
and  restless  if  he  have  not  something  to  do, 


22       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

but  honest  and  kind,  for  the  most  part,  un- 
derstanding his  own  rights  and  stiff  to  main- 
tain them,  and  disposed  to  give  his  children 
a  better  education  than  he  received. 

The  steady  improvement  of  the  public 
schools  in  the  cities  and  the  country  enables 
the  farmer  or  laborer  to  secure  a  precious 
primary  education.  It  is  rare  to  find  a  born 
American  who  cannot  read  and  write.  The 
facility  with  which  clubs  are  formed  by 
young  men  for  discussion  of  social,  political, 
and  intellectual  topics  secures  the  notoriety 
of  the  questions. 

Our  institutions,  of  which  the  town  is  the 
unit,  are  all  educational,  for  responsibility 
•educates  fast.  The  town  meeting  is,  after 
the  high  school,  a  higher  school.  The  leg- 
islature, to  which  every  good  farmer  goes 
once  on  trial,  is  a  superior  academy. 

The  result  appears  in  the  power  of  inven- 
tion,, the  freedom  of  thinking,  in  the  readi- 
ness for  reforms,  eagerness  for  novelty,  even 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       23 

for  all  the  follies  of  false  science ;  in  the 
antipathy  to  secret  societies,  in  the  predom- 
inance of  the  Democratic  party  in  the  politics 
of  the  Union,  and  in  the  voice  of  the  public 
even  when  irregular  and  vicious,  —  the  voice 
of  mobs,  the  voice  of  lynch  law,  —  because  it 
is  thought  to  be,  on  the  whole,  the  verdict, 
though  badly  spoken,  of  the  greatest  number. 
All  this  forwardness  and  self-reliance  cover 
self-government;  proceed  on  the  belief  that 
as  the  people  have  made  a  government  they 
can  make  another ;  that  their  union  and  law 
are  not  in  their  memory,  but  in  their  blood 
and  condition.  If  they  unmake  a  law,  they 
can  easily  make  a  new  one.  In  Mr.  Web- 
ster's imagination  the  American  Union  was 
a  huge  Prince  Rupert's  drop,  which  will 
snap  into  atoms,  if  so  much  as  the  smallest 
end  be  shivered  off.  Now  the  fact  is  quite 
different  from  this.  The  people  are  loyal, 
law-abiding.  They  prefer  order,  and  have 
xio  taste  for  misrule  and  uproar. 


24       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

America  was  opened  after  the  feudal  mis- 
chief was  spent,  and  so  the  people  made  a 
good  start.  We  began  well.  No  inquisi- 
tion here,  no  kings,  no  nobles,  no  dominant 
church.  Here  heresy  has  lost  its  terrors. 
We  have  eight  or  ten  religions  in  every 
large  town,  and  the  most  that  comes  of  it 
is  a  degree  or  two  on  the  thermometer  -  of 
fashion  ;  a  pew  in  a  particular  church  gives 
an  easier  entrance  to  the  subscription  ball. 

We  began  with  freedom,  and  are  defended 
from  shocks  now  for  a  century  by  the  facility 
with  which  through  popular  assemblies  every 
necessary  measure  of  reform  can  instantly  be 
carried.  A  congress  is  a  standing  insurrec- 
tion, and  escapes  the  violence  of  accumulated 
grievance.  As  the  globe  keeps  its  identity 
by  perpetual  change,  so  our  civil  system,  by 
perpetual  appeal  to  the  people  and  accept- 
ance of  its  reforms. 

The  government  is  acquainted  with  the 
opinions  of  all  classes,  knows  the  leading 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       25 

men  in  the  middle  class,  knows  the  leaders 
of  the  humblest  class.  The  President  comes 
near  enough  to  these ;  if  he  does  not,  the 
caucus  does,  —  the  primary  ward  and  town 
meeting,  and  what  is  important  does  reach 
him. 

The  men,  the  women,  all  over  this  land 
shrill  their  exclamations  of  impatience  and 
indignation  at  what  is  short-coming  or  is  un- 
becoming in  the  government,  —  at  the  want 
of  humanity,  of  morality,  —  ever  on  broad 
grounds  of  general  justice,  and  not  on  the 
class-feeling  which  narrows  the  perception 
of  English,  French,  German  people  at  home. 

In  this  fact,  that  we  are  a'  nation  of  in- 
dividuals, that  we  have  a  highly  intellectual 
organization,  that  we  can  see  and  feel  moral 
distinctions,  and  that  on  such  an  organiza- 
tion sooner  or  later  the  moral  laws  must  tell, 
to  such  ears  must  speak,  —  in  this  is  our 
hope.  For  if  the  prosperity  of  this  country 
has  been  merely  the  obedience  of  man  to 


26       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  guiding  of  nature, — of  great  rivers  and 
prairies,  —  yet  is  there  fate  above  fate,  if  we 
choose  to  speak  this  language;  or,  if  there 
is  fate  in  corn  and  cotton,  so  is  there  fate 
in  thought,  —  this,  namely,  that  the  largest 
thought  and  the  widest  love  are  born  to  vic- 
tory, and  must  prevail. 

The  revolution  is  the  work  of  no  man,  but 
the  eternal  effervescence  of  nature.  It  never 
did  not  work.  And  we  say  that  revolutions 
beat  all  the  insurgents,  be  they  never  so  de- 
termined and  politic ;  that  the  great  interests 
of  mankind,  being  at  every  moment  through 
ages  in  favor  of  justice  and  the  largest  liber- 
ty, will  always,  from  time  to  time,  gain  on 
the  adversary  and  at  last  win  the  day.  Never 
country  had  such  a  fortune,  as  men  call  for- 
tune, as  this,  in  its  geography,  its  history, 
and  in  its  majestic  possibilities. 

We  have  much  to  learn,  much  to  correct, 
—  a  great  deal  of  lying  vanity.  The  spread 
eagle  must  fold  his  foolish  wings  and  be  less 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       27 

of  a  peacock ;  must  keep  his  wings  to  carry 
the  thunderbolt  when  he  is  commanded.  We 
must  realize  our  rhetoric  and  our  rituals. 
Our  national  flag  is  not  affecting,  as  it  should 
be,  because  it  does  not  represent  the  popula- 
tion of  the  United  States,  but  some  Balti- 
more or  Chicago  or  Cincinnati  or  Philadelphia 
caucus;  not  union  or  justice,  but  selfishness 
and  cunning.  If  we  never  put  on  the  liberty- 
cap  until  we  were  freemen  by  love  and  self- 
denial,  the  liberty-cap  would  mean  some- 
thing. I  wish  to  see  America  not  like  the 
old  powers  of  the  earth,  grasping,  exclusive, 
and  narrow,  but  a  benefactor  such  as  no 
country  ever  was,  hospitable  to  all  nations, 
legislating  for  all  nationalities.  Nations  were 
made  to  help  each  other  as  much  as  families 
were ;  and  all  advancement  is  by  ideas,  and 
not  by  brute  force  or  mechanic  force. 

In  this  country,  with  our  practical  under- 
standing, there  is,  at  present,  a  great  sensual- 
Ism,  a  headlong  devotion  to  trade  and  to  the 


28       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

conquest  of  the  continent,  — to  each  man  as 
large  a  share  of  the  same  as  he  can  carve 
for  himself,  —  an  extravagant  confidence  in 
our  talent  and  activity,  which  becomes,  whilst 
successful,  a  scornful  materialism,  —  but  with 
the  fault,  of  course,  that  it  has  no  depth,  no 
reserved  force  whereon  to  fall  back  when  a 
reverse  comes. 

That  repose  which  is  the  ornament  and 
ripeness  of  man  is  not  American.  That  re- 
pose which  indicates  a  faith  in  the  laws  of  the 
universe,  —  a  faith  that  they  will  fulfil  them- 
selves, and  are  not  to  be  impeded,  trans- 
gressed, or  accelerated.  Our  people  are  too 
slight  and  vain.  They  are  easily  elated  and 
easily  depressed.  See  how  fast  they  extend 
the  fleeting  fabric  of  their  trade,  —  not  at 
all  considering  the  remote  reaction  and  bank- 
ruptcy, but  with  the  same  abandonment  to 
the  moment  and  the  facts  of  the  hour  as  the 
Esquimaux  who  sells  his  bed  in  the  morning. 
Our  people  act  on  the  moment,  and  from  ex- 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       29 

ternal  impulse.  They  all  lean  on  some  other, 
and  this  superstitiously,  and  not  from  insight 
of  his  merit.  They  follow  a  fact ;  they  fol- 
low success,  and  not  skill.  Therefore,  as 
soon  as  the  success  stops  and  the  admirable 
man  blunders,  they  quit  him ;  already  they 
remember  that  they  long  ago  suspected  his 
judgment,  and  they  transfer  the  repute  of 
judgment  to  the  next  prosperous  person  who 
has  not  yet  blundered.  Of  course  this  levity 
makes  them  as  easily  despond.  It  seems  as 
if  history  gave  no  account  of  any  society  in 
which  despondency  came  so  readily  to  heart 
as  we  see  it  and  feel  it  in  ours.  Young  men 
at  thirty  and  even  earlier  lose  all  spring  and 
vivacity,  and  if  they  fail  in  their  first  enter- 
prise throw  up  the  game. 

The  source  of  mischief  is  the  extreme  dif- 
ficulty with  which  men  are  roused  from  the 
torpor  of  every  day.  Blessed  is  all  that  agi- 
tates the  mass,  breaks  up  this  torpor,  and  be- 
gins motion.  Corpora  non  agunt  nisi  soluta , 


30       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

the  chemical  rule  is  true  in  mind.  Contrast 
change,  interruption,  are  necessary  to  new  ac- 
tivity and  new  combinations. 

If  a  temperate  wise  man  should  look  over 
our  American  society,  I  think  the  first  dan- 
ger that  would  excite  his  alarm  would  be  the 
European  influences  on  this  country.  We 
buy  much  of  Europe  that  does  not  make  us 
better  men :  and  mainly  the  expensiveness 
which  is  ruining  that  country.  We  import 
trifles,  dancers,  singers,  laces,  books  of  pat- 
terns, modes,  gloves,  and  cologne,  manuals  of 
Gothic  architecture,  steam-made  ornaments. 
America  is  provincial.  It  is  an  immense 
Halifax.  See  the  secondariness  and  aping 
of  foreign  and  English  life,  that  runs  through 
this  country,  in  building,  in  dress,  in  eating, 
in  books.  Every  village,  every  city  has  its 
architecture,  its  costume,  its  hotel,  its  private 
house,  its  church  from  England. 

Our  politics   threaten  her.     Her  manners 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       31 

threaten  us.  Life  is  grown  and  growing  so 
costly,  that  it  threatens  to  kill  us.  A  man 
is  coming  here  as  there  to  value  himself  on 
what  he  can  buy.  Worst  of  all,  his  ex- 
pense is  not  his  own,  but  a  far  off  copy  of 
Osborne  House  or  the  Elyse*e.  The  tendency 
of  this  is  to  make  all  men  alike;  to  extin- 
guish individualism  and  choke  up  all  the 
channels  of  inspiration  from  God  in  man. 
We  lose  our  invention  and  descend  into 
imitation.  A  man  no  longer  conducts  his 
own  life.  It  is  manufactured  for  him.  The 
tailor  makes  your  dress ;  the  baker  your 
bread  ;  the  upholsterer  —  from  an  imported 
book  of  patterns — your  furniture;  the  Bishop  . 
of  London  your  faith. 

In  the  planters  of  this  country,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  the  conditions  of  the 
country  combined  with  the  impatience  of  ar- 
bitrary power  which  they  brought  from  Eng- 
!and,  forced  them  to  a  wonderful  personal  in- 
dependence and  to  a  certain  heroic  planting 


32       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

and  trading.  Later  this  strength  appeared 
in  the  solitudes  of  the  West,  where  a  man  is 
made  a  hero  by  the  varied  emergencies  of  his 
lonely  farm,  and  neighborhoods  must  combine 
against  the  Indians,  or  the  horse-thieves,  or 
the  river  rowdies,  by  organizing  themselves 
into  committees  of  vigilance.  Thus  the  land 
and  sea  educate  the  people,  and  bring  out 
presence  of  mind,  self-reliance,  and  hundred- 
handed  activity.  These  are  the  people  for 
an  emergency.  They  are  not  to  be  surprised, 
and  can  find  a  way  out  of  any  peril.  This 
rough  and  ready  force  becomes  them,  and 
makes  them  fit  citizens  and  civilizers.  But 
if  we  found  them  clinging  to  English  tradi- 
tions, which  are  graceful  enough  at  home,  as 
the  English  Church,  and  entailed  estates,  and 
distrust  of  popular  election,  we  should  feel 
this  reactionary,  and  absurdly  out  of  place. 

Let  the  passion  for  America  cast  out  the 
passion  for  Europe.  Here  let  there  be  what 
the  earth  waits  for,  —  exalted  manhood, 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       33 

What  this  country  longs  for  is  personalities, 
grand  persons,  to  counteract  its  materialities. 
For  it  is  the  rule  of  the  universe  that  corn 
shall  serve  man,  and  not  man  corn. 

They  who  find  America  insipid, —  they  for 
whom  London  and  Paris  have  spoiled  their 
own  homes,  can  be  spared  to  return  to  those 
cities.  I  not  only  see  a  career  at  home  for 
more  genius  than  we  have,  but  for  more  than 
there  is  in  the  world. 

The  class  of  which  I  speak  make  themselves 
merry  without  duties.  They  sit  in  decorated 
club-houses  in  the  cities,  and  burn  tobacco  and 
play  whist ;  in  the  country  they  sit  idle  in 
stores  and  bar-rooms,  and  burn  tobacco,  and 
gossip  and  sleep.  They  complain  of  the  flat- 
ness of  American  life ;  "  America  has  no  illu- 
sions, no  romance."  They  have  no  percep- 
tion oi  its  destiny.  They  are  not  Americans. 

The  felon  is  the  logical  extreme  of  the 
epicure  and  coxcomb.  Selfish  luxury  is  the 
end  of  both,  though  in  one  it  is  decorated 


34       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

with  refinements,  and  in  the  other  brutal. 
But  my  point  now  is,  that  this  spirit  is  not 
American. 

Our  young  men  lack  idealism.  A  man  for 
success  must  not  be  pure  idealist,  then  he 
will  practically  fail ;  but  he  must  have  ideas, 
must  obey  ideas,  or  he  might  as  well  be 
the  horse  he  rides  on.  A  man  does  not  want 
to  be  sun-dazzled,  sun-blind;  but  every  man 
must  have  glimmer  enough  to  keep  him  from 
knocking  his  head  against  the  walls.  And 
it  is  in  the  interest  of  civilization  and  good 
society  and  friendship,  that  I  dread  to  hear 
of  well-born,  gifted  and  amiable  men,  that 
they  have  this  indifference,  disposing  them  to 
this  despair. 

Of  no  use  are  the  men  who  study  to  do 
exactly  as  was  done  before,  who  can  never 
understand  that  to-day  is  a  new  day.  There 
never  was  such  a  combination  as  this  of  ours, 
and  the  rules  to  meet  it  are  not  set  down  in 
any  history.  We  want  men  of  original  per- 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       35 

ception  and  original  action,  who  can  open 
their  eyes  wider  than  to  a  nationality,  — 
namely,  to  considerations  of  benefit  to  the 
human  race,  —  can  act  in  the  interest  of 
civilization;  men  of  elastic,  men  of  moral 
mind,  who  can  live  in  the  moment  and  take 
a  step  forward.  Columbus  was  no  backward- 
creeping  crab,  nor  was  Martin  Luther,  nor 
John  Adams,  nor  Patrick  Henry,  nor  Thomas 
Jefferson  ;  and  the  Genius  or  Destiny  of 
America  is  no  log  or  sluggard,  but  a  man 
incessantly  advancing,  as  the  shadow  on  the 
dial's  face,  or  the  heavenly  body  by  whose 
light  it  is  marked. 

The  flowering  of  civilization  is  the  finished 
man,  the  man  of  sense,  of  grace,  of  accom- 
plishment, of  social  power,  —  the  gentleman. 
What  hinders  that  he  be  born  here?  The 
new  times  need  a  new  man,  the  complemental 
man,  whom  plainly  this  country  must  furnish. 
Freer  swing  his  arms  ;  farther  pierce  his  eyes ; 
more  forward  and  forthright  his  whole  build 


36       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

and  rig  than  the  Englishman's,  who,  we  see, 
is  much  imprisoned  in  his  backbone. 

'T  is  certain  that  our  civilization  is  yet 
incomplete,  it  has  not  ended,  nor  given  sign 
of  ending,  in  a  hero.  'Tis  a  wild  democ- 
racy; the  riot  of  mediocrities  and  dishones- 
ties and  fudges.  Ours  is  the  age  of  the  om- 
nibus, of  the  third  person  plural,  of  Tammany 
Hall. 

Is  it  that  nature  has  only  so  much  vital 
force,  and  must  dilute  it  if  it  is  to  be  mul- 
tiplied into  millions  ?  The  beautiful  is  never 
plentiful.  Then  Illinois  and  Indiana,  with 
their  spawning  loins,  must  needs  be  ordi- 
nary. 

It  is  not  a  question  whether  we  shall  be 
a  multitude  of  people.  No,  that  has  been, 
conspicuously  decided  already  ;  but  whether 
we  shall  be  the  new  nation,  the  guide  and 
lawgiver  of  all  nations,  as  having  clearly 
chosen  and  firmly  held  the  simplest  and  best 
rule  of  political  society. 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       37 

Now,  if  the  spirit  which  years  ago  armed 
this  country  against  rebellion,  and  put  forth 
such  gigantic  energy  in  the  charity  of  the  San- 
itary Commission,  could  be  waked  to  the 
conserving  and  creating  duty  of  making  the 
laws  just  and  humane,  it  were  to  enroll  a 
great  constituency  of  religious,  self-respecting, 
brave,  tender,  faithful  obeyers  of  duty,  lovers 
of  men,  filled  with  loyalty  to  each  other,  and 
with  the  simple  and  sublime  purpose  of  car- 
rying out  in  private  and  in  public  action  the 
desire  and  need  of  mankind. 

Here  is  the  post  where  the  patriot  should 
plant  himself ;  here  the  altar  where  vii'tuous 
young  men,  those  to  whom  friendship  is  the 
dearest  covenant,  should  bind  each  other  to 
loyalty,  where  genius  should  kindle  its  fires 
and  bring  forgotten  truth  to  the  eyes  of 
men. 

Let  the  good  citizen  perform  the  duties 
^ut  on  him  here  and  now.  It  is  not  possi- 
ble to  extricate  yourself  from  the  questions 


38       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

in  which  your  age  is  involved.  It  is  not  by 
heads  reverted  to  the  dying  Demosthenes,  or 
to  Luther,  or  to  Wallace,  or  to  George  Fox, 
or  to  George  Washington,  that  you  can  com- 
bat the  dangers  and  dragons  that  beset  the 
United  States  at  this  time.  I  believe  this 
cannot  be  accomplished  by  dunces  or  idlers, 
but  requires  docility,  sympathy,  and  religious 
receiving  from  higher  principles  ;  for  liberty, 
like  religion,  is  a  short  and  hasty  fruit,  and 
like  all  power  subsists  only  by  new  rallyings 
on  the  source  of  inspiration. 

Power  can  be  generous.  The  very  grand- 
eur of  the  means  which  offer  themselves  to 
us  should  suggest  grandeur  in  the  direction  of 
our  expenditure.  If  our  mechanic  arts  are 
unsurpassed  in  usefulness,  if  we  have  taught 
the  river  to'  make  shoes  and  nails  and  carpets, 
and  the  bolt  of  heaven  to  write  our  letters 
like  a  Gillott  pen,  let  these  wonders  work  for 
honest  humanity,  for  the  poor,  for  justice, 
genius,  and  the  public  good.  Let  us  realize 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       39 

that  this  country,  the  last  found,  is  the  great 
charity  of  God  to  the  human  race. 

America  should  affirm  and  establish  that 
in  no  instance  shall  the  guns  go  in  advance 
of  the  present  right.  We  shall  not  make 
coups  d'etat  and  afterwards  explain  and  pay, 
but  shall  proceed  like  William  Penn,  or  what- 
ever other  Christian  or  humane  person  who 
treats  with  the  Indian  or  the  foreigner,  on 
principles  of  honest  trade  and  mutual  advan- 
tage. We  can  see  that?  the  Constitution  and 
the  law  in  America  must  be  written  on  eth- 
ical principles,  so  that  the  entire  power  of  the 
spiritual  world  shall  hold  the  citizen  loyal, 
and  repel  the  enemy  as  by  force  of  nature. 
It  should  be  mankind's  bill  of  rights,  or  Royal 
Proclamation  of  the  Intellect  ascending  the 
throne,  announcing  its  good  pleasure,  that 
now,  once  for  all,  the  world  shall  be  governed 
by  common  sense  and  law  of  morals. 

The  end  of  all  political  struggle  is  to  es- 
tablish morality  as  the  basis  of  all  legislation. 


40       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

'T  is  not  free  institutions,  't  is  not  a  democ- 
racy that  is  the  end,  —  no,  but  only  the 
means.  Morality  is  the  object  of  govern- 
ment. We  want  a  state  of  things  in  which 
crime  will  not  pay,  a  state  of  things  which 
allows  every  man  the  largest  liberty  compat- 
ible with  the  liberty  of  every  other  man. 

Humanity  asks  that  government  shall  not 
be  ashamed  to  be  tender  and  paternal,  but 
that  democratic  institutions  shall  be  more 
thoughtful  for  the  interests  of  women,  for 
the  training  of  children,  and  for  the  welfare 
of  sick  and  unable  persons,  and  serious  care 
of  criminals,  than  was  ever  any  the  best  gov- 
ernment of  the  old  world. 

The  genius  of  the  country  has  marked  out 
our  true  policy,  —  opportunity.  Opportunity 
of  civil  rights,  of  education,  of  personal  power, 
and  not  less  of  wealth ;  doors  wide  open.  If  I 
could  have  it,  —  free  trade  with  all  the  world 
without  toll  or  custom-houses,  invitation  as 
we  now  make  to  every  nation,  to  every  race 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       41 

and  skin,  white  men,  red  men,  yellow  men, 
black  men ;  hospitality  of  fair  field  and  equal 
laws  to  all.  Let  them  compete,  and  success 
to  the  strongest,  the  wisest,  and  the  best. 
The  land  is  wide  enough,  the  soil  has  bread 
for  all. 

I  hope  America  will  come  to  have  its  pride 
in  being  a  nation  of  servants,  and  not  of  the 
served.  How  can  men  have  any  other  ambi- 
tion where  the  reason  has  not  suffered  a  dis- 
astrous eclipse  ?  Whilst  every  man  can  say 
I  serve,  —  to  the  whole  extent  of  my  being 
I  apply  my  faculty  to  the  service  of  mankind 
in  my  especial  place,  — he  therein  sees  and 
shows  a  reason  for  his  being  in  the  world, 
and  is  not  a  moth  or  incumbrance  in  it. 

The  distinction  and  end  of  a  soundly  con- 
stituted man  is  his  labor.  Use  is  inscribed 
on  all  his  faculties.  Use  is  the  end  to  which 
he  exists.  As  the  tree  exists  for  its  fruit,  so 
a  man  for  his  work.  A  fruitless  plant,  an 
idle  animal,  does  not  stand  in  the  universs. 


42       FORTUNE  OF  JHE  REPUBLIC. 

They  are  all  toiling,  however  secretly  or 
slowly,  in  the  province  assigned  them,  and 
to  a  use  in  the  economy  of  the  world ;  the 
higher  and  more  complex  organizations,  to 
higher  and  more  catholic  service.  And  man 
seems  to  play,  by  his  instincts  and  activity, 
a  certain  part  that  even  tells  on  the  general 
face  of  the  planet,  drains  swamps,  leads  riv- 
ers into  dry  countries  for  their  irrigation? 
perforates  forests  and  stony  mountain-chains 
with  roads,  hinders  the  inroads  of  the  sea  on 
the  continent,  as  if  dressing  the  globe  for 
happier  races. 

On  the  whole,  I  know  that  the  cosmic  re- 
sults will  be  the  same,  whatever  the  daily 
events  may  be.  Happily  we  are  under  better 
guidance  than  of  statesmen.  Pennsylvania 
coal  mines,  and  New  York  shipping,  and  free 
labor,  though  not  idealists,  gravitate  in  the 
ideal  direction.  Nothing  less  large  than  jus- 
tice can  keep  them  in  good  temper.  Justice 
satisfies  everybody,  and  justice  alone.  No 


FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC.       43 

monopoly  must  be  foisted  in,  no  weak  party 
or  nationality  sacrificed,  no  coward  compro- 
mise conceded  to  a  strong  partner.  Every 
one  of ,  these  is  the  seed  of  vice,  war,  and 
national  disorganization.  It  is  our  part  to 
carry  out  to  the  last  the  ends  of  liberty  and 
justice.  We  shall  stand,  then,  for  vast  in- 
terests; north  and  south,  east  and  west,  will 
be  present  to  our  minds,  and  our  vote  will 
be  as  if  they  voted,  and  we  shall  know  that 
our  vote  secures  the  foundations  of  the  state, 
good-will,  liberty  and  security  of  traffic  and 
of  production,  and  mutual  increase  of  good- 
will in  the  great  interests. 

Our  helm  is  given  up  to  a  better  guidance 
than  our  own ;  the  course  of  events  is  quite 
too  strong  for  any  helmsman,  and  our  little 
wherry  is  taken  in  tow  by  the  ship  of  the 
great  Admiral  which  knows  the  way,  and  has 
the  force  to  draw  men  and  states  and  planets 
to  their  good. 

Such  and  so  potent  is  this  high  method  by 


44       FORTUNE  OF  THE  REPUBLIC. 

which  the  Divine  Providence  sends  the  chief- 
est  benefits  under  the  mask  of  calamities,  that 
I  do  not  think  we  shall  by  any  perverse  in- 
genuity prevent  the  blessing. 

In  seeing  this  guidance  of  events,  in  seeing 
this  felicity  without  example  that  has  rested 
on  the  Union  thus  far,  I  find  new  confidence 
for  the  future.  I  could  heartily  wish  that  our 
will  and  endeavor  were  more  active  parties 
to  the  work.  But  I  see  in  all  directions  the 
light  breaking.  Trade  and  government  will 
not  alone  be  the"  favored  aims  of  mankind, 
but  every  useful,  every  elegant  art,  every 
exercise  of  imagination,  the  height  of  reason, 
the  noblest  affection,  the  purest  religion  will 
find  their  home  in  our  institutions,  and  write 
our  laws  for  the  benefit  of  men. 

%/Ti  • 


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